Well, yeah

D. J. Tice, who really ought to write more often, in the Star Tribune:

Now what exactly is the allegation here? That the Vikings have a secret plan to extract enough money from their willing customers to cover their whole investment in the new facility?

Shocking, I’m sure. But we must face facts. One way or another, this is what every business does with every investment and every venture — at least if it means to stay in business.

You could almost define a “business” as an organization that seeks to induce willing customers to pay for every blessed thing it does — plus a little extra known to experts in the field as “profit.”

It’s true that firms sometimes finance investments, in whole or in part, with “their own money” — that is, with cash rather than debt or revenue from operations. But they do this only when, and only to the extent, that they come out ahead as a result.

Coming out ahead in the end is what makes any choice, in business terms, the right thing to do. Even department store fortunes are built that way.

There was a reason that Mark Dayton never went into the family business, and it wasn't that he was too high-minded to participate in something as grubby and unseemly as commerce.